


A Gay, Ironic Chance

by marginalia



Category: Design for Living (1933)
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-15 23:24:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13041696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marginalia/pseuds/marginalia
Summary: It had been eleven years or forever of unproduced plays and unexhibited paintings, of surviving on flirtation and miracles, of living in each other’s pockets and all the unspoken rules it took to make that possible.





	A Gay, Ironic Chance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [quietcuriosity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/quietcuriosity/gifts).



> Title from the original Coward play.

Tom and George never spoke to others about how they met, maybe because it didn’t matter, or maybe because it mattered too much. It might have been on a train, or in a trench, or at the Taj Mahal. All that truly mattered in the end was that it had happened. Thrown together, as they would say after Gilda, by a gay, ironic chance, once upon a time.

If they were ever asked, they lied. The bigger the lie, the better. It’s the small lies people find so hard to believe, and all that mattered was that it had happened, two Americans adrift across an ocean, lost boys finding their own sort of home. “We had too much education and too little money,” they’d say “And here in Paris we're not even educated. It's much more comfortable being surrounded by low expectations. They're easier to meet.”

They’d been the best of friends for eleven years or for their entire lives or since the beginning of time. It had been eleven years or forever of unproduced plays and unexhibited paintings, of surviving on flirtation and miracles, of living in each other’s pockets and all the unspoken rules it took to make that possible, but then Gilda came and threw it all away, everything from their rules about looking at the same girl to their rules about looking at each other. 

The rooms were small and the nights were cold, and with the way George’s hair fell down over his forehead, well. One must have rules.

Of course, the rules had always been hard to follow. Easier in the cold light of day, bright awake, but much harder when, say, sleeping next to each other in the cheap seats of the overnight train, drifting head to shoulder in front of God and everyone, breaking their own rules under the cover of dreams. The chance that brought them together was never really going to stop with friendship, no matter how long they stalled.

On some level Gilda saw it and loved them for it. On some level she knew that no agreement, among gentlemen or otherwise, was ever going to work if it relied on Tom loving Gilda loving George, but left off George loving Tom. It was a table missing a leg; you might prop it up against the wall and hope for the best, but it would always come tumbling down in the middle of supper. 

She gleefully broke so many rules that when she left them, they couldn’t help but wonder what rules they could break themselves, if only to break something besides the table settings or the furniture. After all, the agreement was meant for her benefit, to work out which of them she wanted. It failed because it didn't leave room for the possibility that she shouldn't have to decide between them. It would fail again if it forced Tom and George to decide as well. 

::

At first, each thought he was comforting the other, and maybe they were, drinking to everything they could think of, one thing at a time, soon enough melting into the glasses, into the sofa, into each other, as the years of rule following flared up and burned away between them. “To this lock of hair,” Tom said and pushed it back off of George’s forehead, then with unexpected determination, pulled George towards him into a kiss messy with surprise, but deep with the years of waiting.

“To breaking the rules.”

“To hooligans.”

::

“Let’s make her really wonder,” Tom said. “Let her think we’re engaging in high living. Let her think we’re kept men. Where shall we sign the card from? China?”

“You still miss her,” George said, not with regret but with relief, wrapping his arm around Tom’s waist.

“So do you!”

“Do you think we could win her back from him?”

“We are, as one might say, irresistible,” Tom said, turning into George’s embrace.

::

When they rescued Gilda, they laughed and kissed in the cab, but that was never going to be enough. Back in the boys’ terrible hotel room they slept in a heap, felled by alcohol and emotional exhaustion, but they couldn’t put off talking properly about things forever.

“You’ll have to end the playacting,” Tom said over his orange juice, startling all of them, himself most of all. “We all will. If it’s meant to work, we’re going to have to give sincerity a try.”

Gilda stared. “This is quite a conversation to have at breakfast.”

“We talked it all over when you left us, and now we want it all out in the open,” George said. “I love you and you love me and we both love Tom, and we’re all going to have to grow up a little bit. If you can’t promise to try, we’re sending you right back to that party, C.O.D., payable by Egelbauer.”

Tom nodded. “If we’re going to be unconventional, we’re going to do it right, and you have to be all in. We’re done competing. We’re a team now and none of us are gentlemen.”

Gilda’s eyes widened in delight. “I thought you beautiful idiots would never work it out!” It was their turn to stare, and she had the decency to look a little ashamed. “I think I knew since the train,” she said slowly. “I just didn’t really understand until I lost you both.”

“To be fair,” George said, “We didn’t understand until then either.”

Tom took their hands across the table. “Time to stop sweeping things under the rug, I think. It’s going to be work, but,” he smiled at them, “It will be worth it!”

::

They were a team, but a broke one. What they had forgotten the first time - what Gilda had let them forget - was that she was an artist too. A commercial artist, of course, but mostly that meant that she was an artist who got paid regularly. If any of them could be counted on to supply three square meals a day, it was her. There was always money in selling things people didn't need at prices they couldn't afford. It was called aspiration.

“Why did we let you tell us your art didn’t matter?” George asked one night.

“Perhaps because you thought being supported by a woman wasn’t manly,” Gilda said. 

“Enough of that,” Tom said. “Bruise our egos and bring home the bacon like the good Midwestern girl you are.”

“Or if not the bacon, at least the deli pickles and a crust of bread.”

"And we'll be satisfied with 50% virtue."


End file.
